Our main goal: to amplify the stories of Rochester’s entrepreneurs, innovators, and risk taking small business owners.

Why should I care?

We have the privilege of living in a city with a leading medical institution. Life science and healthtech startups have been budding out of that system for a few years, but often these stories are not brought to the surface. Beyond the science and health space, Rochester has many other people taking risks. Our brewery and brewpub scene is emerging. Our food space is developing. We have sportstech startups. We have disruptive hardware and software product development firms. A new business incubator will open soon. We have a business accelerator and coworking space.

More and more people are starting to take risks every day. Our startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem is growing. We need to hear those stories of success. We need those hear the stories of those risk takers to not only inspire others to step forward, but to also let people know what resources exist for business development. We also need to hear the stories of failure, not to ridicule, but to learn so we can collectively grow our community.

We need to give Rochester’s innovators a voice.

What kind of content with Rochester Rising produce?

Rochester Rising tells the stories and displays the unique flavor of Rochester’s entrepreneurs. We’ll be out there talking to that person who just launched a new business to understand who they are, what problem they’re trying to solve, and what major hurdles they’re facing. We want to share the success stories of people who have grown their business in Rochester. What did it take and how did they get there? And for that person who’s been running a business for years if not decades in Rochester, how have they pivoted and molded their business over time to keep it successful?

We want to share the major successes of our entrepreneurs as well. We want to share stories of startups making large hires, launching clinical trials, and starting and raising large rounds of funding.

This is a place to tell the stories not just of entrepreneurs, but also of those creative, risk taking small business owners who might not consider themselves to be entrepreneurs. We all play a vital role in whatever Rochester is to become.

Right now, we share stories through online articles and podcasts. We also include short audio pieces inside the articles to really allow the reader to sample the flavor of Rochester.

I noticed you used to be Life Science Nexus. Is that going away?

Yes. We will continue to share life science and healthtech stories on Rochester Rising, but no new content will be posted on Life Science Nexus. After engaging with some great people in the Rochester community, we realized our entrepreneurs and innovators need a voice. We want to use Rochester Rising to share the stories of all entrepreneurs in Rochester, not just those in the healthtech and science space.

How will you make money?

That’s a great question, one that we turn over every day. We consider Rochester Rising to be a little bit like a startup itself, so we are still figuring out the business model.

There are two major mechanisms we see for financing Rochester Rising.

1: Business support through ads and sponsorships. We have a variety of ad options, from in-article advertisement to ads on the main website with very competitive rates. We also will advertise in short audio clips in the articles themselves and in our podcast. If you are a business interested in partnering with us to support the Rochester entrepreneurial ecosystem, please contact us to discuss the package perfect for your business.

2: Individual support. Rochester Rising is a community-based organization. If you like the content that you see and listen to here and believe in what we are doing, please consider supporting us. It can be today, tomorrow, whenever. It can be as little as $5 a month or a lump sum. If you see the benefit that Rochester Rising can have for the community, please help us make it sustainable. We currently are setting up the fundraising system and gathering some awesome incentives, so stay tuned.

How can I help?

The biggest way you can help is just by spreading the word that Rochester Rising exists and sharing our stories and podcasts on social media. And again, please consider supporting Rochester Rising on the individual or business level.

We’re here for the Rochester entrepreneurial community. We hope to become the first place people think of to find information or the latest news about our startup community. Please help us stay informed of what’s going on in the community. Who’s doing great things? Who has a new initiative? Who’s doing a lot of hiring? Who just closed a major round of funding? Let us know so we can make the larger community aware.

We are always looking for writers. We want to continue the science writing content that we published on Life Science Nexus. So if you’re a student or professional looking to get science writing experience, please contact us.

We’re also looking for subject matter experts to produce guest posts. Are you an expert at social media? Are you a genius at customer acquisition? Consider writing a guest post or we can help you craft one.

And as always, let us know what you like and what you don’t like. What kind of stories do you want to hear? Let us know on our social accounts or through email.